By Sandi Masori in La Jolla, California
Tuesday night marked the kickoff to JFEST 2026, the 33rd annual Jewish Arts Festival. Supporters gathered in the Mandeville Auditorium at UCSD to nosh and laugh. Starting with a reception, audience members kibbitzed while enjoying kosher sushi, cheeses, and pastries. Headliner Alex Edelman made an appearance and graciously took pictures with whomever asked. Then it was time to go into the auditorium and see the show.
Edelman’s show last year was a huge hit. Becca Meyers (producing director of JFEST) said in her introduction that Edelman is one of her favorite performers. This year we not only got comedy, we received a fireside chat as well.
Edelman is an Emmy and Tony award winning writer and performer, who currently writes and appears on the Peacock series The Paper.
After greeting the audience Edelman, who grew up Orthodox, opened with a groaner. “What’s the difference between a reform Rabbi and Donald Trump?” He asked. The answer, “Donald Trump has Jewish grandchildren.” As the crowd groaned in unison, he noted that yes, it was a bad joke, and yes, everyone would be repeating it. He wasn’t wrong on either count.
He then proceeded to do about a 40-minute comedy set that had the audience laughing along. Some of the comedy was riffing on the Orthodox, especially his recent experience performing at a Passover program, where he noted that the Shabbat elevators in a 50-story hotel (catering to both Orthodox Jews on the Passover program and non-Jews) could be a major driver of antisemitism, stopping as they did at every floor.
He also talked about disappointing his heart surgeon doctor father with his career choice. And then, moving away from the Jewish experience did a bit about the new kind of ice cream that doesn’t sound like ice cream, earl grey tea, and blue cheese and pear for example.
His set was funny and as you would hope and expect, had a high laugh per minute ratio.
Then he brought out his friend, non-Jewish comic Connor Wood, who drove down from LA with him to interview him in the fireside chat. Wood noted that Edelman has a way of bringing niche Jewish comedy to the non-Jewish community in a way that can be easily accessed. Edelman responded that non-Jewish audiences liked his HBO special better than Jewish audiences as they didn’t have the reaction of “that’s not MY experience of Judaism.”
In the interview which went a little long, he talked about going to a Nation of Islam meeting and listening to Farrekhan deliver three hours of antisemitic rhetoric,\ and then sharing a row on the plane home with Ferrekhan’s nephew. A small bridge was built in that plane ride. He also talked about getting comedy advice from comedy legends Jerry Seinfeld, Billy Crystal, Steve Martin and others. While he didn’t share the specific advice he was given, he noted that no comedy solo show is truly a solo show as it has “little bits of everyone” who gave advice and feedback.
After the prepared questions he took some questions from the audience. This part rambled a bit and as the night got longer some of the older audience couldn’t stay through the end. As a personal aside, I would have liked to see JFEST’s own Becca Meyers conduct the interview instead of his friend. Though Wood may be a celebrity in his own right, I think that Meyers has an incredible energy and charisma and knows the audience in a way that would have enabled her to field the questions and speed up some of the answers that meandered a bit.
That slight critique notwithstanding, I think it’s safe to say that everyone enjoyed the evening and that it was a nice kickoff to this year’s festival.
As I say at every Jewish event, being in a room full of our people, looking around at the many community members wearing their Judaica or kippot openly always makes my heart swell with pride. It’s really important that we have and support these kind of Jewish Arts Events, for if we don’t who will? Besides that, it’s a nice evening out with your mishpacha.
You can learn more about Jfest at https://www.sdjfest.org/
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Associate Editor Sandi Masori is a theater and food reviewer for San Diego Jewish World.
FYI, at least 1 of the prepared questions was mine, taken from the email that was sent to ask questions for Alex in advance. It was the one regarding the advice he was given when people like Seinfeld saw his show.